Saturday, April 14, 2007

New Sweaters!

I finally have pictures of my Hand-to-Hand Aran and my red sweater!

Here's the Hand-to-Hand Aran:

And here's the red sweater:

I think these might be the first two sweaters I have knit since starting this blog. I tend to knit sweaters in pairs, and I often finish a pair of sweaters in the early spring. I'm not quite sure what that means, but there you have it.

The Hand-to-Hand Aran fits well, and is the type of sweater I will wear a lot. It is a very "me" kind of sweater. I think I might add a couple more inches to the length of the sweater, because I am constantly pulling it down. But that's easy to do since the body was knit from the top down.

I'm not sure if I like the red sweater or not. If I made it again, I think I would make it a bit narrower. And the V-neck is a lot lower than what I usually wear. I think my main problem with it is that I feel fat when I'm wearing it. I wore it to work yesterday, but I'm not sure how many times I will actually wear it in the future. Time will tell.

Here's the details:

Hand-to-Hand:Worsted weight coned yarn from WEBS, knit on size 8 needles. I used just a bit over a pound of yarn.This was based on Elizabeth Zimmerman's Hand-to-Hand Aran sweater. I took her general idea, and made some modifications:1. I knit the sleeves in the round instead of knitting them flat and seaming.2. I made the sleeves much narrower than what the pattern called for. This gave me less stitches to use for yoke patterning, but made the sweater fit the way I wanted it to.3. I added waist shaping. I was amazed by how fast this sweater knit up. Plain stockinette in the round zips right by!

Red Sweater:Knit with Jaeger Merino and size 6 needles. I love this yarn. It was a pleasure to knit with, and I think that it will hold up well.The stitch pattern is somewhere back in my archives, but comes from one of Barbara Walker's books. I made up the pattern as I went along, and ended up surprised by how well it came together.I love this yarn. It was a pleasure to knit with, and I think that it will hold up well.

14 Comments:

OK, it might just be the photography, but I have to tell you that I think the red sweater looks *fabulous* on you! Great job! (Not that the Aran isn't beautiful, but when I read your review I felt the need to jump in on the red sweater's behalf.) LOL!

I'm putting in a vote for the red sweater. I know that the h-t-h sweater is more your style, but yay for you for trying something different! The V-neck is not LOW-low, it's sexy! Congrats on finishing 2 big projects!